“Profit from the Pickens Plan” Alternative Energy Speculator

Aha! You think for a moment that the Gumshoe has returned from vacation early to jump on a hot new stock tip … but you’re wrong, my friend.

I’m still not here, but my ethereal presence is calmly posting a rerun of a stock we snooped out many months ago, with a few new notes to update you.

The catch is, back when the Alternative Energy Speculator first started teasing us about this stock, before Summer came to the Northern Hemisphere, the “Pickens Plan” hadn’t yet been officially launched by our favorite billionaire, so we weren’t yet being teased with the fact that we could “follow an oil billionaire to natural gas profits.”

The Pickens Plan has been heavily advertised this summer — you have in all likelihood seen the commercials it on TV, since that’s the heart of the outreach strategy for T. Boone Pickens (and he’s got the money for plenty of advertising when he sets his mind to it).

This plan essentially involves a strategy to use windmills for electricity generation, which will free up domestic natural gas to be used for transportation, and cure us of our addiction to oil imports — there’s a certain elegance to that, and there is at least some infrastructure for natural gas vehicles in place, and a national distribution system, even if there aren’t many actual fueling stations yet. That elegance hides a large number of stumbling blocks, I’m sure, but it’s at least an intriguing plan. And God knows, he’s not the only one who’s finally realizing that wind power is efficient and cheap — though the cows in Texas apparently like the view of wind turbines much more than do the vacationers on Cape Cod or Florida beaches.

But the big tease in these ads is for the natural gas stuff — and one of the companies that might profit is, in fact, owned by T. Boone Pickens himself. Actually several are, but this particular one teased in the ad is a company that develops natural gas engines for heavy trucks, and that is poised to benefit from a “superfund” to push the switchover to cleaner trucks in California ports, most of which are located in areas that are already cursed with heavy smog and particulate pollution. These ports are extremely motivated to cut diesel use, so that’s where this company has a chance to make a name and a market for itself.

So yes, for those who have been paying attention lo these many months, this one is the same stock I wrote about in March — Westport Innovations. Since then, it has sold shares in a new offering to list on the Nasdaq (just last Friday), and the shares have come down quite a bit from recent highs. You can go here to read up on the full analysis of the original ad and the other readers’ comments about the company, but do note that the ticker is different now — it still trades in Canada at WPT, but the new US ticker, now that it’s off the pink sheets and on the Nasdaq, is WPRT.

The other big natural gas transportation stock that Pickens is a major holder of, by the way, is Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE) — they build the fueling stations for natural gas, and were also partly-owned by Westport until recently (they may still have some shares, not sure — CLNE was formed, largely due to Pickens’ influence, using some Westport assets, which is how they came to own part of it). Selling CLNE shares was one of the few profit drivers for Westport over the last year or so, they’re still a ways away from mass producing the heavy truck engines that are teased here, though their Cummins Westport joint venture is churning away nicely and spinning off profit, other initial partnerships with truck and engine makers have been signed of late, and their heavy truck engine plant is supposed to open next year.

I continue to hold shares of WPRT personally, and I write about them on occasion on the Irregulars site.

Just a few more days of reruns, and then your beloved Stock Gumshoe will be back to wow you with new wit and wisdom — happy investing!

Share your thoughts...

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ZACK’S? I’M 51 YRS. OLD, DISABLED (LIVER TRANSPLANT) AND JUST NEED TO HAVE MY MONEY GROW. I HAVE AROUND 25,00O TO INVEST BUT I JUST CAN’T SEEM TO ABSORB ALL THIS INFO. I HAVE BEEN A SUBSCRIBER TO YOUR SITE FOR SOMETIME AND ENJOY AND TRUST MOST OF THE ADVICE, BUT I NEED SOME PROFESSIONAL HELP. ANY RECOMMENDATIONS?

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August 21, 2008 8:33 am

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PH

Tommy God Bless you …..you have been through alot. Maybe right now ya better cool your jets until the market stabalizes….then a good mutual fund like CGMFX may be worth your while , It is a NO LOAD Fund with an excellent track record…check it out with morningstar.com
Good Luck!

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August 21, 2008 8:43 am

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sequential

Any one tried Alternative Energy Speculator put out by Jeff Siegel who seems to have a very good track record comments please
Thanks S

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August 21, 2008 10:05 am

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Cocoon

Ron Baron has a new fund BRIFX, it is designed to double every
five years [over 14%/annum] provided all dividends and distributions are reinvested.I own several thousand shares at around $10/sh. FWIW

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August 21, 2008 10:27 am

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Pete Ewing

Tommy,

With 25,000 to invest you should probably not be buying many individual stocks. I second the motion on CGMFX, Ken Heebner is a great money manager. I would put some with him for an aggressive play and the rest in HSGFX. John Hussman is a great manager as well. He continues to make new highs all this year and he is always looking out for you on the downside.

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August 21, 2008 10:51 am

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marilyn milam

Pickens ideas sound great. Letter to ed. Wall St Journal – lady says she has been driving nat gas vehicle for 5 years. Fills up in her garage. I Like this idea. Why isnt tnis getting more publicity?

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August 21, 2008 3:30 pm

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Frequent Flyer

Kudos to Gumshoe Great honest,educated,non-bias reviews! Will be joining ! Now Boone Pickens is nobody’s fool. He’s got money & opportunity for Boone in this. With current technology it takes up to 8 hours to safley fill a natural gas vehicle , unless of course the tank is extremely small and therefore the range. At the end of the day “made on board hydrogen gas vehicles take the cake. There are already + 50,ooo on the road. The kits run about $ 1400.00 & guarantee a 50% minimum increase in your present gas mileage. An upgrade to follow shortly will… Read more »

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August 24, 2008 6:02 pm

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Bruce Joseph

Stock Gumshoe and others:

Anyone know the name of “the desalination company” whose desalination process/technique is so much cheaper than others?
Nick Hodge wrote about it in April, then again later (from Alternative Energy Speculator). The company allegedly announced it’s desalination process May 7, so it’s relatively “old news”.

Thank you.

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August 21, 2009 3:51 am

Irregular

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stockcrazy10

ERII is usually mentioned as a desalination play, but I’m not aware of a May 7 announcement.

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